Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Gordillo, Leonardo
• Cerda, Enrique

Titel

A tiny, long-distance hunter

Ist Teil von

• Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science), 2024-06, Vol.384 (6700), p.1064-1065

Ort / Verlag

Washington: The American Association for the Advancement of Science

Erscheinungsjahr

2024

Quelle

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Anglers know that when the goal is distance, winding of the fishing line is as essential as casting technique. When tightly spooled around a reel, a fishing line effortlessly unwinds when the bait is slung. Similarly, the protist Lacrymaria olor, a hunter of the microbial world equipped with an extending necklike protrusion, relies on efficient rearrangement of its cellular morphology to release its deadly long-distance attack. However, the mechanism that L. olor uses to store its neck, which can extend to 30 times its body length, leaving it ready to deploy in a blink, has remained a mystery. On page 1084 of this issue, Flaum and Prakash (1) now show that the neck relies on membrane pleating, in which distinct microtubule structure and topological features control hyperextension with minimal energetic cost. These findings change our understanding of how cytoskeletal and membrane dynamics can evolve to achieve remarkable and rapid conformational changes in specialized behavioral modes.